SANTIAGO: Ah, I’d understood that … But what about that gentleman I pass in the doorway of the street, or on the stairs, the one who we see in the newspapers, isn’t he your husband? I’m sorry, I didn’t know.
KATHIE: There’s no reason why you should. Or for you to be sorry either. Aren’t there thousands, millions of women in the world who have been widowed? There’s nothing unusual about that.
SANTIAGO: Of course there isn’t. It’s as commonplace and natural as it is for a marriage to break up. (Looks at ANA.) Aren’t there thousands, millions of women in the world who are separated from their husbands? They don’t all make a Greek tragedy out of it though.
KATHIE: I’m not keen on Greek tragedy. But it turned into one in this case because Johnny darling didn’t die of natural causes. Actually … he killed himself.
(SANTIAGO appears not to hear her, concentrating as he is on ANA who has burst out laughing again.)
SANTIAGO: Why are you laughing? Out of spite? Jealousy, is it? Envy? Or just plain stupidity?
ANA: Curiosity, professor.
SANTIAGO: Oh, go and do the cooking, clean the house, look after your daughters, do those things a woman’s supposed to do in life for a change.
ANA: First, just clear up one little point for me. I’m dying to know why that pupil of yours, Adèle, left you. Ha ha ha …
(African tom-tom music bursts out suddenly, as if willed by SANTIAGO to escape a painful memory. He quickly takes hold of the tape-recorder; he is quite stunned.)
SANTIAGO: I’ve no time now, I’m very busy, the two hours are nearly up. Go away. (Dictating) And finally, after travelling for countless hours in the stifling heat and sweat through lush vegetation burgeoning with bamboo, ebony and breadfruit, the rickety old bus jolts to a halt in a small village between Moshe and Mombasa.
KATHIE: Then, there in a little hut we saw something quite, quite unbelievable.
SANTIAGO: (Dictating) Then we witness a spectacle so unimaginable that it makes our blood run cold.
KATHIE: Some little boys, completely bare, their bellies bulging out in front of them, were eating pieces of earth, as if they were sweets.
SANTIAGO: Some naked children, their stomachs swollen by parasites, were satiating their hunger with some pieces of suspiciously white-looking meat. What am I seeing? Can I believe my eyes? Petrified, I realize what these ravenous little creatures are devouring: one of them is eating a little hand, another a foot, that one over there, a shoulder, which they’ve torn from the carcass of another child.
KATHIE: (Disconcerted) Do you mean they were cannibals? (SANTIAGO stops dictating, discouraged by ANA’s sardonic look.)
SANTIAGO: It gives it more of a sense of drama. It’s more original, more shocking. A few children eating earth isn’t going to surprise anyone, Kathie. It’s something that happens here in Peru as well.
KATHIE: (Astonished) Here in Peru? Are you sure?
SANTIAGO: Peru isn’t Lima, Kathie. And Lima isn’t San Isidro. Here in this district you won’t see it, but in certain less well-off areas and in a lot of places up in the mountains, what you saw in that African village is really quite common. You’ve been round the world twice, or three times, is it? Yet you give me the impression that you don’t really know your own country properly.
KATHIE: I went to Cuzco once, with Johnny. The altitude made me feel awful. You’re right, you know. Here in Peru we know more about what goes on abroad than we do about our own country. We’re really such snobs!
ANA: (Killing herself with laughter) Yes, we are, aren’t we …? Particularly if we happen to be multi-millionaires.
(SANTIAGO resigned, abandons the tape-recorder and looks at ANA.)
SANTIAGO: All right have it your own way, you spoilsport!
ANA: How ridiculous you are, Mark Griffin! You leave your wife, and your daughters, you run off with some stupid little Lolita of a girl, you make yourself the laughing stock of the entire university. And all for what? The vamp abandons you after a few weeks and you come limping home to say you’re sorry with your tail between your legs. (Very sarcastically) Might one be allowed to know why Adèle left you, Victor Hugo?
KATHIE: (Changed into an irate Adèle, to SANTIAGO) Because I’m young, my life’s just beginning, I want to enjoy myself. Why should I live like a nun? If I had the vocation, I’d have gone into a convent. Do you understand?
SANTIAGO: (Contrite, intimidated) Of course I do, my little Persian kitten. But don’t exaggerate, it’s not that important.
KATHIE: You know very well I’m not exaggerating. You spend the whole day telling me how desperately in love with me you are, but when it comes to the point, when it come to the actual love-making, pssst … you’re just like a pricked balloon.
SANTIAGO: (Trying to make her speak more quietly, to calm her, so that no one hears) You really must try to be a little more understanding, my little Persian kitten.
KATHIE: (Getting more and more annoyed) You’re nothing but a fake, Mark. You’re all façade, a hippopotamus who looks quite terrifying but who only eats little birds.
SANTIAGO: (Terribly uncomfortable) I have a lot of worries, my little Persian kitten, that wretched Ana — she’s constantly scheming behind my back, it nearly drives me up the wall. And then there’s those lectures I’m giving at the moment on the Spanish mystics, their theories and sermons on asceticism, they really have quite a special effect on the psyche, you know, they anaesthetize the libido. Shall I explain to you what the libido is? It’s very interesting, as you’ll see. A gentleman called Freud …
KATHIE: I don’t give a damn about the psyche or the libido. It’s all a lot of excuses, a pack of lies, a load of rubbish. The truth is you’re weak, spineless, cowardly and, and …
ANA: Impotent, is that the word?
KATHIE: That’s it, that’s it, impotent. That’s exactly what you are, Mark Griffin: you’re impotent!
SANTIAGO: (Who doesn’t know which way to turn) Don’t say that word, Adèle. And don’t talk so loud, the neighbours will hear us, how embarrassing. During the holidays, when the pressure is off, you’ll see how …
(ANA listens to them; she’s killing herself with laughter.)
KATHIE: Do you think I’m going to wait till the summer before we next make love?
SANTIAGO: But we made love only the other night, after that film, my angel.
KATHIE: That was three weeks ago! No! A month! Do you think I’m going to saddle myself with some feeble old fuddy-duddy, who can only manage it once a month after seeing a pornographic film? Do you really think so?
SANTIAGO: (Wanting to disappear from sight) Passionate love, based on animal copulation, isn’t everything life has to offer, my little Persian kitten. Nor is it even advisable. On the contrary, it’s ephemeral, a castle made of sand which falls down at the first gust of wind. A loving relationship, on the other hand, based on mutual understanding, on a striving for common goals, ideals …
KATHIE: All right then, go and look for some other idiot who you can share your loving relationship with. What appeals to me is the other sort. What’s it called again? Passionate love? The dirty sort, the animal sort, that’s the one that interests me. Ciao, professor. I don’t want to see you again, ever. Ciao, Victor Hugo!